Monday, October 26, 2009

It's Monday -- so here, have a [book] meme!

It has been far too long since I flicked open this little pixellated book journal. Therefore, to flex my little book-musing fingers, a meme:

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
The Good News Bible given to me by my aunty Nell when I was just a baby.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you'll read next?
(for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick to one of each)
Current read: Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith
Last read: Sick Heart River by John Buchan
Next read: Breath for the Bones by Luci Shaw

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Everything I've ever tried by Jodi Picoult.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?
Maybe A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

5. Which book are you saving for "retirement"?
War and Peace.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
Sometimes I'm guilty. Eep.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
Sometimes authors are brilliant enough that they can make even acknowledgements sound interesting.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Jo March, perhaps -- only without my sister dying.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
There are too many to consider. Plus, it is on the way to Monday night and therefore my brain is lazy.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
Once, a few years back, I was sitting in the pit area at my father's motorbike race meet, reading Stephen Lawhead's Hood. The wife of the man in the opposite pit smiled, but we didn't talk much. The second day of the race meet, however, she returned with a massive bag full of Lawhead books -- all for me! She'd noticed and she wanted to pass her own collection on to someone who would enjoy them. That was pretty incredible.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
Sometimes I love certain books and certain people so much that I feel sure they would go together, and give them to each other.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
My Bible. It's not only gone places with me, but it's in my heart, too.

13. Any "required reading" you hated in high school that wasn't so bad ten years later?
I've loved most stuff I've "had" to read.

14. What is the strangest item you've ever found in a book?
An inscription with a web address.

15. Used or brand new?
Both have their own small delights.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
I'm too chicken to try anything of his.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
My Sister's Keeper. Alright. So throw rotten tomatoes at me.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Hmm... I'm sure there are many, but none come to mind.

19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oh, the descriptions of starchy, fatty, utterly delicious foods in that book make my mouth water just thinking of them!

20. Who is the person whose book advice you'll always take?
My cousin Elizabeth. I think that out of all my friends, hers is the book taste most similar to my own. We love so many of the same books.

How about you?